How to Cross Stitch a Family Portrait

Making your family in stitching is a super cute way to decorate your house. You can frame the finished project and hang it by the door, make it into a pillow, photograph it and use it on your Christmas cards — there are so many fun ways to use it. And it’s a great way to document your family’s growth or preserve a time in your life.

But how do you cross stitch a family portrait?

You can work with an actual photograph as inspiration or just line up your family in your mind. This post from Martha Stewart covers the basics of how to draw out people. I love the tips here about the size of people’s heads! Also remember to consider the things that make a person look like themselves, which is often their hair, if they have glasses, and other distinguishing features.

While a cross stitch portrait can’t have a lot of details, making sure you hit the basics of a person will make it look more like them.

Catholic Sprouts has great tips on making your family in pixels, too, and you can use her patterns of her family as a basis for your own if you’re not sure where to start.

More Like Home has a video tutorial on stitching a family portrait if you’re more of a visual learner (note: she mentions her website in the video but when I click the link none of the photos show up and I get a security warning when I try to download her templates, so proceed with caution there).

If you need more help with how to cross stitch a family portrait, or make a stitched version of anyone you want, check out the book Pixl People, which has thousands of options for personalizing people, from body type and hairstyle to clothing and accessories like pets, plants and more than can be included in your designs. Stitch People has a great basic guide to designing people that might be a little less overwhelming in that it helps guide you through the process of selecting the details and producing your chart.

You can also get someone to make a custom chart for you to stitch from, like this one from Overflow Creative on Etsy.

[Photo: Catholic Sprouts.]

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15 Ugly Christmas Holiday Sweaters To Cross Stitch

If you’re a fan of detailed and colorful cross stitch patterns, Design for Cross Stitch might have a pattern you want to try. This Etsy shop is based in Spain and has more than 50 designs with a focus on animals, holidays and landscapes.

I’m just going to start with the first pattern that caught my eye when I visited the site, which is this Sakura by the Lake project. This pattern is 200 by 200 stitches and the whole background is stitched, so it’s definitely not for a beginner, but it’s stunning and would be amazing to make for someone who loves Japan. Despite the detail it only uses 24 colors. Worked on 14 count fabric it will measure 14.64 inches, or 37.19 cm.

There are a few other landscape designs, including a canal in Venice and a few cabins in the woods.

The shop also has some cute animal cross stitch, with big, round faces and often holding a warm beverage. Holiday projects focus on Christmas and Halloween. Most of the patterns have a cute, chibi-like feel, but there are some that are more detailed and realistic as well. Take for examples the flower patterns, which are full of details and soft colors.

You’ll also find some fun bookmark cross stitch patterns with a watercolor feel, as well as some that look kind of like paint pouring turned into stitches.

If this sort of stuff sounds like fun to you, check out their Etsy store at Design for Cross Stitch.

Do you have a favorite cross stitch designer who I haven’t featured yet? Let me know in the comments or share more about them by clicking on “suggest a DIY” at the center top of the page and let me know the details. I’d love to share the designers you’re enjoying with a wider audience.

[Photo: Design for Cross Stitch]

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